11th Sunday After Pentecost

Matthew 18:23-35

In the Gospel reading for today, we hear of a man who was deeply in debt, owing a great fortune to the king. The king wanted to settle his accounts with his servants and therefore demanded the payment of this debt. The poor servant could in no way pay back this great amount and so the king ordered that he and his wife and children should be sold into slavery to repay the debt. The man fell on his knees and begged the king for mercy and patience to give him time to try to pay back what he owed. The king was moved to compassion by the cries of the debtor and, with a loving heart, forgave him everything.

When this man went out he found one of his fellow servants who happened to owe him some small amount of money. This time, the one who had just been forgiven so much, showed no mercy and threw the debtor into prison. When the king heard about this, he called the first man before him and said, ‘You wicked servant, I forgave you the great debt that you owed and you have turned around and shown no mercy on the one who owed you so little.’ In righteous judgment the king put this man into prison until he was able to pay back all that he had originally owed.

Our Lord Jesus Christ concludes this parable telling us that this is how our Heavenly Father will treat each of us unless we forgive our brother from our heart. The message is very clear – if we expect to be forgiven, if we expect to receive mercy, then we must forgive and show love and mercy toward others.

This parable of the debtor brings out a very important concept about the justice and the mercy of God.

The man who owed the great debt begged the king to show mercy… to not deal with him, as we might say, ‘with justice’, which would suggest giving him what he deserved. The man was delinquent on his debt and he may have deserved to go to the debtors’ prison until his debt could be paid. Instead, the king shows mercy and forgives him everything. Later, when this same man refuses to show mercy on his servant, the king unhesitatingly throws him into the prison where he would stay until all his debts are paid off.

I think many of us tend to think that mercy and justice are not really compatible. If we deal with someone with justice, the person gets what they deserve. If we deal with someone with mercy, we override that justice, in favor of forgiveness.

Yet how often do we hear in Scripture and in our Church Services about the justice and mercy of God? Throughout Scripture these two go hand in hand together.

What then… if God is showing mercy, is he not being just? And if God is delivering justice, is he not being merciful?

If we think of justice in the way our culture has taught us to think of it, we equate justice with someone getting what they deserve for a given offense. We see justice in a transactional way. We speak of the scales of justice… assuring that if you commit the crime, you do the time.

But what does justice mean in the context of God? Is God subject to the dictates of justice? Certainly not! We always have to check our conceptions of God against what the Church and the Scriptures teach us. The unfolding revelation of God from the beginning of time, to the incarnation of Christ, to the descent of the Holy Spirit and the testimony of the lives of the saints over these two thousand years has been that God is a God of love.

It is easy for us to understand mercy in the context of a loving God. But what about justice?

St Isaac the Syrian, responding to this karmic idea of justice wherein you get what you deserve, says the following: ‘Do not call God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning you… How can you call God just when you come across the Scriptural passage on the wage given to the workers?…How can a man call God just when he comes across the passage on the prodigal son who wasted his wealth with riotous living, how for the compunction alone which he showed, the father ran and fell upon his neck and gave him authority over all his wealth?…Where, then, is God's justice, for while we are sinners Christ died for us!’

Justice, in the hands of God, is more accurately understood as ‘restoration’, as fixing that which is broken, as setting things right. Justice and mercy then, in this understanding, work together toward restoration and healing.

The king in today’s parable initially offered his mercy to the debtor. But when the debtor showed no mercy to the one indebted to him, the king sent the ungrateful man to the debtors’ prison in the hope of setting things right – primarily for him! That there, the gravity of his sin could be known, and he could repent. This is the justice and mercy of a loving God Who will do and allow what is necessary to soften our hearts and to facilitate our salvation.

In the Old Testament book of Micah we hear the following regarding the transgressions of the people of Israel and what God seeks from us to make things right: ‘Hear now what the Lord says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, O you mountains, the Lord’s complaint, and you strong foundations of the earth; For the Lord has a complaint against His people, and He will contend with Israel.’ And the Lord then says: ‘O My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against Me. For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, I redeemed you from the house of bondage; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.’ And the people then ask: ‘With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ And now, dear brothers and sisters, listen to the answer: ‘He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?’

May we all understand the true meaning of justice and mercy… those two partners working together toward reconciliation and healing. God has shown us what is good… to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.